Letters: Residential school promises, traffic tragedies

Residential school survivor Lorna Standingready is comforted by a fellow survivor during the closing ceremony of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, at Rideau Hall June 3, 2015. Who should have rights to the confidential records of school survivors?Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Lev Marder suggests that former residential school students need to be asked, not told, what will happen to their confidential documents from the Independent Assessment Process. He is right. And this is what the Supreme Court of Canada decided.

As an adjudicator in the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), I have conducted hundreds of hearings since 2003 and I know that few of these stories would have been told had claimants not trusted the promise of confidentiality that was made to them.

If the court had decided that this promise could be broken, would that have furthered the spirit of reconciliation?

Marder suggests that claimants be approached individually for permission to share their records. How would that be done without already breaching the promise of confidentiality? Many claimants are desperate to conceal from those closest to them the very fact that they have made a claim. And would it be fair to remind claimants, years later, of events that they have fought to put behind them? Many of these people are extremely fragile.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s task was to encourage former students to offer up their stories as contributions to the historical record; they received several thousand such testimonies. Unfortunately, the commission then sought access to IAP testimonies, which were given in a different context and for a very different purpose — to prove allegations of abuse.

I understand the desire to protect and preserve these stories, but they do not belong to us. IAP claimants will have 15 years from the conclusion of a claim to decide whether to share their stories with the archive or anyone else. The choice needs to be theirs.

A few days ago I came across an old newspaper article by Ann Landers that I had saved from years ago. The article was titled, “Dead at 17.” Shortly thereafter I read in the Citizen of the terrible tragedy on the Calabogie road that claimed the lives of two young men and led to serious injuries to two others. My condolences to family and friends.

The article “Dead at 17” should be compulsory reading by every young person about to get their driver’s licence. They would see, and hopefully comprehend, the terrible impact not only on those directly involved in the accident but also on family and friends. I would encourage every parent to seek out the article and have their new driver sit and read it aloud to them. The article may be accessed online using the title, “Ann Landers Dead at 17.”

Al Jones, Almonte

Tearing a strip off these jeans

Re: The absolute best jeans for a curvy body shape, Nov. 3.

I am seldom moved to write a letter to the editor, but your story on blue jeans would have ruined my breakfast unless I sent you a note.

Different styles of jeans are fine and inevitable, but when a producer charges premium prices for jeans with intentionally torn knees …

I have seen an increasing number of people (almost all women) walking around with this “feature” in many cities. It seems to me that the subliminal message those wearing this type of jean are conveying is: “I am affluent enough to buy these expensive jeans, but I can look impoverished at the same time. Isn’t that clever?”

Purchasers of this type of jean should be made aware that it is an egregious insult to poor people everywhere.

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